


The Forces of Doom

by Residesatshamecentral



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, ss-gb
Genre: Archer is SO DONE, Crack, Cultists, Humor, evil from beyond time being chased off by shouting, lovecraft mythos, references to the creepy interests of Himmler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Residesatshamecentral/pseuds/Residesatshamecentral
Summary: Archer and Huth discover the existence of the Cthulhu Cult





	The Forces of Doom

“What” said Archer flatly.

They picked their way uneasily through the dank tunnel. All around them hung evidence of human sacrifice, arms and legs dangling limply like the malformed tendrils of some hideous plant. The soldiers looked grimly from their positions, stationed around the entrances to the underground complex. Their expressions were hard to read in the dim light. Crouching at their feet, and standing nervously with their hands behind their heads, were thirty or so cultists of all ages and types.

“Repeat it again” said Huth. The young officer swallowed. He had been unfortunate enough to be in charge of the situation when they got there.

“Well sir” he said slowly “from what we can understand from the oldest prisoner” he indicated a gaunt-faced form flanked by two guards “these people worship the er, ‘Great Old Ones’ who lived long before men and…”

“And come from the sky” finished Archer. His face was granite.

“Yes sir, and one day their god or high priest – he was a bit vague on which – is going to drown us all and bring, er, a wonderful new world of liberation where people can rape and kill as much as they like. And it doesn’t matter that their god is dead, because he is just sleeping, and to things like that ‘dead’ means ‘asleep’. He is under the sea, apparently, and there are things under the sea and in the earth that are his servants. And they rape and kill as much as human beings will rape and kill when the wonderful new world comes.” The young man blinked. He had been carefully brought up and done well at Oxford. He was not really very prepared for this sort of thing. Several of the acolytes were muttering under their breaths, apparently oblivious to the nudging and light slaps of the officers. Their eyes were quite dead.

Archer and Huth shared a look. It had been almost a year since Archer had joined the SS, but Huth had not yet seen the look that was coming into his Aide’s eyes. It was a look that could burn through iron. Archer turned slowly from the octopus-faced statue he had been examining (“that’s the god, sir”) to the gaunt acolyte currently muttering to himself at the feet of his disconcerted guards. A strange tension was filling the air, a feeling like the electric charge before lightning.  

“Correct me if I am wrong, Lieutenant” said Huth  grimly “but I believe no coercion was used to persuade the leader to talk?”

“Only the usual, sir.”

“Then it seems remarkably un-secretive for a secret cult to suddenly spill all of its darkest secrets so readily.”

“Ah…that’s something I wanted to mention sir.” The young officer polished his glasses on his shirt to avoid looking at them “apparently that muttering they are doing is to summon, er ‘a writhing darkness from beyond time’ to erase our very existence and cast us into a hell of nothingness, sir. ‘All who discover the dreadful truth must submit or die mad’ apparently.”

“This.” said Archer. His face in the greenish light was hard lines and planes. “This. Stops now. I do not have time for this.” The charge in the air was accompanied now by a deepening of shadows. The faces of the men looked ghoulish now, eyes glittering pits, mouths horribly distorted in the unnatural glow of the lamps. A strange trick of the light made skins look oddly reptilian, made fingers momentarily appear to be webbed. The muttering had become a low chant, a throbbing that made the gut clench with a spiritual certainty of evil. Archer looked coldly at the trembling Lieutenant “Where?” he asked flatly.

“I-I beg your pardon sir?”

“Don’t. Bloody. Stutter. Where? They say a aincent evil is coming to eat us. Where. Will it. Appear?” The man hesitated “WELL SPEAK UP YOU SNIVELLING PRICK.” Archer’s expression barely changed as he shouted. A tap on his arm made him turn. Standing between his guards was the white-bearded leader of the cult, bent almost double with age and emaciation. He raised a skeletal arm to a point on the opposite wall. “The dire emissary will emerge from there” he whispered. His eyes were glitters in a shadowed darkness “From its own plane shall it come, yea, but to the place where we have given out small offerings. As ants in the darkness are we, yea, helpless before…oi,” He finished lamely as Archer strode towards the place indicated. “I was still talking.”

“Shut up!” barked one of the guards, and gave him a slap for good measure.

Archer stood before the point on the wall. Certain overly dramatic writers might have referred to it as a ‘portal’ a word which essentially means ‘doorway’ and is related to the thoroughly un-dramatic word ‘porter.’ In fact it was not a portal, but a strange sort of archway raised from the blank stone of the dripping wall and surrounded by elaborately carved figures at which it was best not to look too closely. In the burning, mad light, they appeared to be moving, every flicker from the corner of Archer’s eye telling him that they were set to crawl away from the wall. The light deepened. A crack, a spark-like flicker interrupted the expanse of stone within the archway. Then a glare of madness filled the space. An aberration, a light that was a darkness blared into a realm that was not meant for it. Archer’s set face was lit by a glow from beyond time. He raised his voice to shout above a noiseless noise and deafened the unthinkable shape appearing before him.

“GET! THE HELL! _OUT_! GET OUT! I HAVE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH EVERY DAY! I WILL NOT PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT! I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU ARE! IF YOU CRAWL ONE INCH INTO MY JURISDICTION I WILL ARREST YOU! AND THEN I WILL BEAT YOU UP FOR RESISTING ARREST! ** _GET OUT OF HERE!_** ”

There was a pause. The evil light and the noiseless noise seemed to hesitate. Organs no-one in the room had previously known they possessed (bar one or two cultists) registered the uncertain embarrassment of the entity their eyes refused to make sense of. Awkwardness stretched the silence into several long seconds.

Blinking but composed, Huth stepped forward “This territory is under Nazi authority” he said crisply “I believe Himmer has an extensive interest in the occult.”

A polite twitch of tentacles indicated that the entity failed to see the point.

“He could make…existence…unpleasant for you” clarified Huth “If you do not desist now, and return to whatever plane you usually inhabit, you will cause a major diplomatic incident.”

The thing seemed to consider.

“OUT” snapped Archer. “Or I will come over there and decide for you.”

It may be that Himmer’s occult connections are better than history supposes. It may be that he had contracts and arrangements that made eating his representatives too much trouble for the emissary of weird darkness to consider. But popular opinion (among the soldiers who witnessed the whole thing and discussed it in hushed whispers for the rest of their lives) is that it was Archer’s expression that decided the issue.

The look on the man’s face was something that had probably never been seen before by the horror from beyond time. It was the look of a man who has to deal, every day, with the SS, and is simply not prepared to put up with more.


End file.
